Actually, the best bet nowdays seems to be typing a word the way you think it's spelled in as a Google search. They'll generally correct it for you; for instance typing "numonya" brings a prompt for "pneumonia." The old "look it up in the dictionary" doesn't work unless you already have a pretty good idea of how the word is spelled.

IMHO, the important words in trout007's quotation from the Constitution are: "for limited Times." Once Congress passed the "Let's Protect Steamboat Willy while Pretending We're Doing Something for Sonny Bono Act," the time limitations for copyright protection became ludicrous. Unfortunately, a law that fails to make sense to ordinary individuals becomes virtually impossible to enforce without continually adding new and more draconian punishments. SOPA and PIPA were the Congressional equivalents of "those who laugh on the Sabbath day shall be confined to the Stocks for eight hours" and thus deserving of the reactions they induced.

Luckily, the Supremes of that era didn't accept that analogy. With current group on the bench, it's much better for individuals to block the law before it's enacted and some "person" like the RIAA figures out a way to get SCOTUS to come up with reasons why "piracy" should be punished by drawing and quartering.

bs0d3 writes: A Swedish File-Sharer has been found guilty of infringement and ordered to pay a fine today, in Sweden's first large bittorrent case against a filesharer. The 25-year-old boy who had shared 60 movies via bittorrent, has been ordered to pay a fine of 6000 SEK (901.39 USD). The lawyer plans to appeal.

An anonymous reader writes: A new smart camera technology not only takes a picture but also assays chemical composition, allowing photographers to tell whether that hand-rolled cigarette contains tobacco or marijuana. Designed to speed industrial inspection systems--such as detecting whether food is spoiled--the new smart camera includes spectral filters that make images of corn fields appear differently from hemp. Spectral cameras have been available for decades, but this microchip version should be cheap enough for almost any application--including law enforcement.

I agree. The current model is too many students listening to a teacher drone on with the same lecture notes and/or Power Point overheads that he/she has used for the last five or more years. IMHO, that method was obsolete when I was in school 30-40 years ago. However, too many the current teachers and administrators have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo ante, so I don't have much faith in it changing quickly.

A team at Case Western Reserve University led by Michelle Rasmussen and Daniel Scherson has tapped into the metabolic system of a cockroach to produce electricity. This isn't the first time anyone has tried building a cyborg bug of sorts. A University of Michigan team tried it using piezoelectric materials. What's interesting here is that Rasmussen's group used the insect's own body chemistry to produce electricity.

The article also says shiitake mushrooms contain the same sugar as cockroaches and have also been used to produce electricity. Hopefully mushrooms and roaches alike will be able to exit the Matrix at some point.

An anonymous reader writes: Travelers should opt for the aisle seat when on a long distant flight. While researchers have dispelled the myth of the “Economy Class Syndrome,” that sitting in the coach section of the plane during a long-haul flight increases the risk of developing a blood clot, health experts discovered that sitting in a window seat is indeed a risk factor for deep vein thrombosis.

New evidence showed that regardless of whether the passenger is in economy or first class, window seats elevates the risk for DVT, according to the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP).

shuttah writes: Robert X. Cringely, author of the 1992 influential book Accidental Empires, will be republishing & updating (including pictures & new chapters) the now twenty year-old book via the launch of a new blog also by the author.

Cingeley tell us — "So next month I’ll be starting a second blog with its own URL just for Accidental Empires. I, Cringely will continue right here as ever (no changes at all), but on the book blog I will over several months publish — a chapter or so at a time — the entire 100,000-word book for the world to read, free of charge."

The book was also the basis for Cringley's 1996 TV miniseries "Triumph of the Nerds" released by PBS.

ambermichelle writes: Our dreams of commercial space travel are suffused with a sense of wonder: we’re willing to pay hundreds of thousands to visit suborbital space long enough to see the curvature of the Earth and enjoy weightlessness before returning to our origin. But for private space ventures, the ability to take passengers to the edge of space opens up a more conventional, and lucrative, possibility: a 6,800-mile New York-to-Tokyo flight that lasts anywhere from 45 minutes to several hours instead of the 12-14 hours that it takes on today’s long-haul aircraft.

Barence writes: "A new product called BytePac aims to change the way we archive our old hard disks. It's an environmentally friendly enclosure for both 2.5in and 3.5in disks, made entirely out of "100% recyclable material" — basically, cardboard. One set of cables — with both USB and eSATA connectors at the PC end — will work with every individual BytePac, meaning you can simply buy a cheap empty BytePac box for each disk, label it, and line it up on a shelf. The disk itself need never again leave the BytePac. More details, and a video of how it works, at PC Pro."

MrSeb writes: "DARPA has released the first video of its robot Legged Squad Support System (LS3) walking untethered and in the wild. Watch in awe as a robotic quadruped scales a rocky, forested hill while carrying a heavy load on its back. The last time we saw LS3 (aka AlphaDog), back in September, it was tethered to external hydraulics. This made it impressively quiet, but obviously it couldn’t go outside. In the last few months, those hydraulics have been squeezed onto AlphaDog’s chassis, and an on-board petrol-driven motor powers the whole thing. What now follows is an 18-month testing period where AlphaDog's performance will be verified, culminating in an actual field exercise with some US Marines."

shoutingloudly writes: "In a NY Times op-ed today, RIAA chief Cary H. Sherman accuses the opponents of SOPA of having engaged in shady rhetorical tactics. He (wrongly) accuses opponents such as Wikipedia and Google of having disseminated misinformation about the bills. He lashes out at the use of the term "censorship," which he calls a "loaded and inflammatory term." Most/. readers will get the many unintentional jokes in this inaccurate, hypocritical screed by one of the leaders of the misinformation-and-inflammatory-rhetoric-wielding content industry lobby."

Orome1 writes: "AARP and Microsoft released “Connecting Generations,” a research report that examines how people of all ages are using online communication and social networking to enhance their family relationships. 30 percent of grandparents of teens/young adults agree that connecting online has helped them better understand their teen/young adult grandchildren, and 29 percent of teens/young adults say the same about their grandparents. While most respondents wish they knew more about how to keep personal information private, and how to safeguard their devices, the younger generation wants more information than older respondents about using social networks more safely."